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NOVEL NOTES

To Big Hearted, Big Souled, Big Bodied friend Conan Doyle

PROLOGUE

Years ago, when I was very small, we lived in a great house in a long,
straight, brown coloured street, in the east end of London. It was a
noisy, crowded street in the daytime; but a silent, lonesome street at
night, when the gas lights, few and far between, partook of the character
of lighthouses rather than of illuminants, and the tramp, tramp of the
policeman on his long beat seemed to be ever drawing nearer, or fading
away, except for brief moments when the footsteps ceased, as he paused to
rattle a door or window, or to flash his lantern into some dark passage
leading down towards the river.

The house had many advantages, so my father would explain to friends who
expressed surprise at his choosing such a residence, and among these was
included in my own small morbid mind the circumstance that its back
windows commanded an uninterrupted view of an ancient and much peopled
churchyard. Often of a night would I steal from between the sheets, and
climbing upon the high oak chest that stood before my bedroom window, sit
peering down fearfully upon the aged gray tombstones far below, wondering
whether the shadows that crept among them might not be ghosts soiled
ghosts that had lost their natural whiteness by long exposure to the
city's smoke, and had grown dingy, like the snow that sometimes lay
there.

I persuaded myself that they were ghosts, and came, at length, to have
quite a friendly feeling for them. I wondered what they thought when
they saw the fading letters of their own names upon the stones, whether
they remembered themselves and wished they were alive again, or whether
they were happier as they were. But that seemed a still sadder idea.

One night, as I sat there watching, I felt a hand upon my shoulder. I
was not frightened, because it was a soft, gentle hand that I well knew,
so I merely laid my cheek against it.

"What's mumma's naughty boy doing out of bed? Shall I beat him?" And
the other hand was laid against my other cheek, and I could feel the soft
curls mingling with my own.

"Only looking at the ghosts, ma," I answered. "There's such a lot of 'em
down there." Then I added, musingly, "I wonder what it feels like to be
a ghost."

My mother said nothing, but took me up in her arms, and carried me back
to bed, and then, sitting down beside me, and holding my hand in
hers there was not so very much difference in the size began to sing in
that low, caressing voice of hers that always made me feel, for the time
being, that I wanted to be a good boy, a song she often used to sing to
me, and that I have never heard any one else sing since, and should not
care to.

But while she sang, something fell on my hand that caused me to sit up
and insist on examining her eyes. She laughed; rather a strange, broken
little laugh, I thought, and said it was nothing, and told me to lie
still and go to sleep. So I wriggled down again and shut my eyes tight,
but I could not understand what had made her cry.

Poor little mother, she had a notion, founded evidently upon inborn
belief rather than upon observation, that all children were angels, and
that, in consequence, an altogether exceptional demand existed for them
in a certain other place, where there are more openings for angels,
rendering their retention in this world difficult and undependable. My
talk about ghosts must have made that foolishly fond heart ache with a
vague dread that night, and for many a night onward, I fear.

For some time after this I would often look up to find my mother's eyes
fixed upon me. Especially closely did she watch me at feeding times, and
on these occasions, as the meal progressed, her face would acquire an
expression of satisfaction and relief.

Once, during dinner, I heard her whisper to my father (for children are
not quite so deaf as their elders think), "He seems to eat all right."

"Eat!" replied my father in the same penetrating undertone; "if he dies
of anything, it will be of eating... Continue reading book >>